Hastings Helps Halt French Invasion
By Kent Barker
In all the commemorations this year of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, another military campaign exactly two hundred years earlier was rather overlooked. It’s one that’s particularly relevant to Hastings, as a former Mayor provided important intelligence and a local MP helped see off the enemy fleet.
In 1744 England, through its protestant Hanoverian king, was enmeshed in the War of the Austrian succession. The previous summer George II had led the army at Dettingen – the last time a British monarch commanded his troops in battle. Despite losing his horse and being forced to advance on foot, George and the so-called ‘pragmatic army’ emerged as victors.
A puppet of paris
But while he was occupied in Bavaria, the French were amassing a fleet around Calais preparing to invade Britain. They intended to install the ‘Pretender’, the Catholic James Edward Stuart, on the throne as James III. He would be a puppet of Paris and end Britain’s anti-French alliances with Austria and the Dutch. A French army estimated somewhere between 6,000 and 15,000 men had assembled at Dunkirk, equaling or outnumbering the standing British army in the South of England. But, as ever, they had first to cross the channel and, in this instance, pass the British Channel Fleet commanded by Sir John Norris.
Norris had joined the Navy in 1680. He initially served under Captain, later Admiral, Cloudesley Shovell, who himself lived in Hastings in All Saints Street for a period. Norris rose through the ranks eventually becoming Vice Admiral of Great Britain in 1739. He was returned as the MP for Rye five times between 1708 and 1734 and moved to Hempsted Manor less than 20 miles inland from Hastings, around 1718.
Essex landing on site
By the 26th February 1744, French troops in transport ships had already sailed from Dunkirk heading for Maldon in Essex – their intended landing site. Their covering naval squadron under French Admiral Roquefeuil had left Brest but fatally miscalculated the location of Norris and his Channel Fleet, believing them to be in Portsmouth rather than off the South Downs.
England was on a war footing. When parliament was told that the French Fleet was cruising off the coast ready to help put the Jacobite Pretender on the throne, the Duke of Marlborough rose to declare he would spend the “last drop” of his blood in support of the Hanoverian Royal family.
John Collier, joint solicitor to the Cinque Ports and previously mayor of Hastings, was asked by Whitehall to report at once if he saw any sign of either the French or English navies.
A letter from Andrew Stone, Hastings MP and private secretary to the Duke of Newcastle, then a senior government minister, told Collier that the French squadron is “gone westward” and that Sir John Norris was following them. Collier was now asked to “employ some proper persons to keep a good look out upon the coast and when they shall see either of these squadrons, or any part of them, that you will send immediate notice of it by express to my lord duke.”
Sailed past hastings
This Collier duly did, reporting back himself to the Duke the following day that fifteen French Men of War had sailed past Hastings and were believed to have anchored at Romney Bay to the east of ‘Dengeness’ point. Sir John Norris and the British fleet had been spotted approaching when “there was a violent rain that evening and the wind changed”.
Once the British ships appeared at Romney Bay the French rapidly withdrew with Norris in pursuit. As with the Spanish Armada 150 years earlier, it was the weather that helped save England. The violent rain and the change in the wind that John Collier had noted turned into a major storm. Twelve French troop transport ships were sunk, seven going down with all hands. The rest were severely damaged and forced to limp back into Dunkirk. Roquefeuil’s Men of War were dispersed by the storm, finally making it back to their home port of Brest, badly battered. The British fleet, having found shelter in South Coast ports, remained mainly undamaged and the French invasion plans were cancelled.
Despite the passing of this invasion threat, Britain formally declared war on France the following month. The news reached Hastings on Sunday 12th April 1744, and a formal proclamation had to be made to the town. John Collier was disparaging about the way this was done in their neighbouring Sussex town: “They proclaimed it at Rye a Saturday before their order arrived and we hear fired guns. This we thought not proper.”
So members of the Hastings Corporation met on the Sunday night to discuss how things should be conducted. John Collier had by then held the mayoral office five times – most recently in 1741 – so he was among the senior Jurats charged with making the announcement to the citizenry. From a letter he sent to his wife Mary a couple of days later, we have an extraordinarily vivid picture of the occasion.
Anouncement of war
On the stroke of two o’clock on Monday afternoon, a corps of 110 men assembled in ‘the Fishmarket’ – probably at the bottom of today’s High Street. They were resplendent in their uniforms – described by Collier as “all clean and powdered”.
Once they were mustered, the dignitaries gave notice to the Captain to begin the march. Three sergeants and 12 men accompanying the drums carried the colours. Collier is among those to give the official salute to the officers who proceded with six mounted dragoons clearing the way with swords drawn.
“Then the Mayor and Jurats, followed by Capt. Scott and the whole body two drums in the front after one rank, the colours in the middle carried by Maul and Ensign Thomas brought up the rear. Marched as slow as possible and the soldiers drawn up at the old Market, Patrick read the Declaration, with the usual previous proclamation, then three loud huzzas.”
The entire entourage then marched back to the Fishmarket where the proclamation was again read. The soldiers were given drink while the dignitaries adjourned to the Swan. It was, Collier told Mary, “a very fine afternoon, though foul weather… a prodigious number of people present”.
There were no further battles that year, but the French-backed landing of the Pretender’s son, Bonnie Prince Charlie, in Scotland in 1745 was to give everyone in England sleepless nights. Only the rebels’ eventual defeat at Culloden would ensure that George II remained on the throne and England stayed a Protestant nation.
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